Saw the poster for this at the Blockbuster the other day while renting the first episodes of True Blood: The Complete Second Season .
On one hand, the fact that Kevin Costner is now headlining a direct-to-video horror movie does not appear to bode well for his career, despite having won Academy Awards and other honors in the past.
On the other hand, this direct-to-video film is based on the short story "The New Daughter," which appears in Nocturnes
, an anthology of horror fiction by the Irish writer John Connolly. I read the book back when I lived in Marietta and there are some very good stories in it. One of them, "The Erlking," even inspired me to put some allusions to Angela Carter's short story of the same name in one of my lesser novel ideas (basically a space-opera potboiler that might not ever see the light of day). That one was pretty darn good and descriptive in its own right. Another story, one about clowns, creeped even me out, and that's saying something.
So I might watch this movie, to encourage more films to be made off short stories.
On the other hand, if Philip K. Dick had written a grocery list, I have no doubt it would now be a major motion picture starring Sandra Bullock and Johnny Depp. "Gallon of Milk: The Motion Picture. Coming soon to a theater near you."
ReplyDelete:)
Regarding: "On one hand, the fact that Kevin Costner is now headlining a direct-to-video horror movie does not appear to bode well for his career..."
ReplyDeleteThe above remark is basically an oxymoron. A) We're talking about Kevin Costner, infamous for a long string of stinkers; B) Direct to video says it all; and C) what could he possibly do at this point that would bode worse for his career than Waterworld?
How about "this is a new low, even for him"?
ReplyDeleteAfter all, earlier Costner films, no matter how good or bad, managed to get theatrical release.
(Of course, not all direct-to-video films are bad. "Dog Soldiers" was DTV in the US, for example. This one also looks somewhat promising, if only for the source material.)